I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I tried to unlock the wrong cottage in Nr. Lyngby. There I was, standing in the drizzle of North Jutland, jiggling a key in someone else's door while a very confused Danish cat watched me from the windowsill. Turns out I'd wandered two doors down from our actual rental, a charming little place near the coast where the North Sea does its best to remind you who's boss.

The real cottage was worth the humiliation. Proper Danish hygge vibes, wooden beams, and a kitchen that looked like it had seen decades of holidaymakers attempting to cook with local ingredients. I dumped my bags and immediately started planning my first meal, because if there's one thing I'd learned about North Jutland, it's that you don't come here to diet.

The morning after my arrival mishap, I headed to the local market in Lokken, about ten minutes away. The fish stall alone nearly made me weep. Fresh plaice, herring, and something the vendor called "North Sea goodies" that I suspect was just whatever the boats had caught that morning. I bought far too much, as always, and spent the afternoon attempting to recreate a proper Danish fish platter in that well-worn kitchen. Let's just say my first attempt at pickled herring ended up more "pickled regret." The vinegar ratio was all wrong and I had to open every window while the neighbours probably wondered what I'd died of.

The local pubs became my salvation. There's something wonderfully unpretentious about Danish coastal drinking holes, and I found myself in a snug little place in Lokken where the beer was cold and the smorrebrod was stacked high enough to require engineering. I got chatting with a fisherman who told me, in broken English and elaborate hand gestures, that I'd been cooking my fish all wrong. "Too much thinking," he said, which I took as profound life advice rather than mere culinary criticism.

Back at the cottage, I tried simpler approaches. A trip to a nearby farm shop yielded proper Danish bacon, local cheeses that smelled like they meant business, and potatoes still dusty from the earth. I made the most basic fry-up imaginable, and it was genuinely the best thing I'd eaten all week. Sometimes the fisherman was right - too much thinking ruins everything.

I did venture to another market, this one a bit further along the coast, where I became slightly obsessed with remoulade. I brought back three different jars and conducted taste tests with bread from the local bakery, rating them with elaborate notes like a proper food critic. The third jar won, though I couldn't tell you now what made it superior. Something about the balance of pickles and whatever magic Danes put in their sauces.

My final evening, I attempted to cook for some neighbours I'd befriended at the pub. I kept it simple - grilled fish, new potatoes, butter, nothing clever. We sat in that cottage kitchen with candles burning and wine flowing, and someone produced a bottle of snaps that stripped several layers from my throat. The conversation wandered from fishing quotas to whether I'd ever find the right cottage on the first try, and I admitted that getting lost had probably been the best start to any holiday I'd had.

I left Nr. Lyngby with a heavier waistline, a new appreciation for not overthinking my cooking, and a small stash of that winning remoulade in my suitcase that I'm fairly certain leaked on someone's shirt in airport security.